WILCOX, NEB –February 4, 2016 – “Presidential candidates and
their political handlers in both parties would be wise to learn
from the thirty-plus year failed record of U.S. ‘free trade’
corn export promises before attacking the Renewable Fuel
Standard (RFS), the most successful domestic rural economic
development policy in modern history,” said Gale Lush, a farmer
from Wilcox, NE and Chairman of the American Corn Growers
Foundation (ACGF). “Had we relied on exports without the ethanol
RFS for essential new corn demand market growth since 2005 the
rural economy would have experienced a meltdown. So why would
any presidential candidate want to
dismantle such a successful, economic development
infrastructure? The ethanol RFS and ethanol industry create
hundreds of thousands of jobs and keep the price of gasoline at
the pump as much as $1 per gallon lower for consumers. RFS
energy policy is ‘all American’ vs U.S. fossil fuel incentives
that subsidize foreign oil interests. The ethanol RFS serves the
economic security of America.”

Dan
McGuire, ACGF Project Director and export policy analyst points
out that U.S. corn exports will only hit 1.7 billion bushels in
the 2015-2016 marketing year that ends on August 31, according
to the January 12, 2016 U. S. Department of Agriculture WASDE
report. “During the 1980’s-1990’s farm-trade policy
‘restructuring regime’ agribusiness economists and ‘trade
experts’ projected U.S. corn exports would hit 2-3 billion
bushels consistently by now. They missed that mark by a country
mile,” said McGuire. “The low end of USDA’s projected 2015-16
average corn price is only $3.30 per bushel. Some cash prices
have dropped below $3.00 in recent months in South Dakota. Rosy
U.S. export forecasts didn’t just miss the mark on corn exports.
They were even worse on wheat exports which will only hit 800
million bushels this year according to USDA. That’s only about
50% of what wheat exports were in the 1980s. Imagine what the
cash corn (and wheat) price would be without 5.2 billion bushels
of domestic corn demand from ethanol right here in our U. S.
homegrown market. Without the ethanol RFS both corn and wheat
would have seen many years of disastrous prices.”

“The 1980’s rosy U.S.
‘export-oriented’ farm policy has yet to deliver. Export levels
forecast then are an aberration if they are reached at all. The
‘record’ agricultural exports we hear officials talk about are
in $ value terms, not export quantities. In any case strong corn
export value resulted from stronger corn prices which were a
direct result of domestic corn demand and strong corn
utilization by ethanol plants. Americans cannot afford to allow
the domestic U.S. corn demand and price infrastructure to be
undermined. Furthermore, corn used for ethanol production does
not compete with corn for human food as anti-renewable oil
industry spin activists suggest. The feed components of that
yellow field corn still go to livestock feed and U.S. motorists
realize the major economic benefit of buying cheaper gas at the
pump by as much as $1.00 per gallon less than it would be
without ethanol blended in”, said McGuire. “U.S. taxpayers have
subsidized fossil fuels for about 100 years, including foreign
oil exploration. The ethanol RFS supports American jobs when our
country seriously needs them. Politicians that do not realize
this are not paying attention. The RFS should stay permanent
policy.”